SUCCESS left behind... focusing on "things" that WON'T lead you to it

Success is what comes after you've worked for something, be it a role on a company or simply a personal project. When defining what "being successful" will be, we usually have little or no idea of what we'll have to go through to get to that point. 

If you look back to some situations you've been through, now that you've concluded them, you'll most likely see that the paths that led to success weren't those you had previously considered. Planning is indeed necessary, but it doesn't guarantee you won't be surprised along the way.

While in the process of battling for achievement of our professional goals as executives, we sometimes forget or simply ignore the fact that the environment that surrounds us is constantly changing and that the path we had previously has to be reconsidered. Maybe the so called "great company" you'd entered five or ten years ago is no longer a marketplace reference or merely the place you where you want to be NOW.

I participated on a career counseling event today at Insper - São Paulo where many experienced executives, who currently work on renowned corporations, demonstrated to be frustrated with their current job situation. They all confirmed to be working on the companies they had believed to be their dream companies, but were mad at the fact that they no longer gave them that exciting feeling.

My point on view is that these people ignore the inevitable fact that in the last 10 years the world has been exposed to economic crisis, wars, environmental disasters... How can a company not change in response to such events? 

The fact is that we tend to ignore the macro scenario and end up accommodated to our daily tasks, leaving behind our need to update and accompany the external tendencies.

For example. These "all of a sudden" unsatisfied businessmen find it easier to point their fingers at the company and ignore the fact that they have been standing-by for close to a decade! This is what we do!! Most of us!! Then, when we get tired of the atmosphere that was once comfortable, we are simply outdated with all that has happened outside of close reach.

While we watch all the changes from far away, these so called great companies are doing their homework in search of survival. While doing this, they'll inevitably suffer changes which lead to us to rank them down. 

The thing is: WE MUST REVIEW, FROM TIME TO TIME, WHAT DOES BEING SUCCESSFUL REPRESENTS AND SPECIALLY RECONSIDER OUR ORIGINAL PLAN OF REACHING IT. The path is never as clear as we usually picture it at first.

I'm quite confident that if the executives I met today had been reconsidering their situation vs. what they had initially planned every now and then, they wouldn't place blame on others since they would have already changed their plans ahead of time.

By: João Marcelo Diniz - joaodinizbr@gmail.com